Links: Hacking, Music in Python, Rust & unitasking

Michael McCracken — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 23:15:00 GMT

My shared links for April 5th through April 6th:

Why I still program - "I believe that the rejection of programming as a lower activity can be explained by the Theory of the leisure class. In effect, we do not seek utility but prestige. There is no prestige in tool-making, cooking or farming. To maximize your prestige, you must rise up to the leisure class: you work must not be immediately useful."
From counting citations to measuring usage (help needed!) - Building a Better Citation Index
workhacks.com: Top 3 Gmail Management Apps for Mac - Mailplane Blog - includes a list of gmail plugins that look useful
Melopy - """ >>> from melopy import Melopy >>> m = Melopy('mysong') >>> m.add_quarter_note('A4') >>> m.add_quarter_note('C#5') >>> m.add_quarter_note('E5') >>> m.render() [==================================================] 100% Done """
Rust Language Tutorial: Expression Syntax - Starts out good, but the "leave out a semicolon to return a value" leaves a bad taste. Why overload semicolons like that? Why not just use 'ret'?
Forget Self-Improvement -
The Magic of Doing One Thing at a Time - Tony Schwartz - Harvard Business Review - A few good points on avoiding multitasking burnout. Nothing too new, but maybe if people keep repeating it in places like HBR, then it'll start to become conventional business wisdom?

michael-mccracken.net (libraries)